and Winnie had left.
We sat down at one of the marble-topped tables.
“I wanted to ask you to dinner, tonight,” Bruce said. “I know it’s short notice, but the Manhattan Borough President’s Office just cancelled a meeting on me and I figured I’d take advantage of the unexpected free time. You know I’ve been trying to find an evening for us to spend some time together, and tonight’s the first night I could manage it.”
I mentally checked my social calendar and came up empty as usual. Still, I didn’t want to seem too eager. And then, of course, there was that pesky little issue of my personal friendship with a detective getting Bruce Bowman’s name bumped up a suspect list in a number of recent homicides.
I wanted to tell Bruce everything, but I didn’t dare. Our relationship was still new and fragile. Trust was important. I could think of no way to bring up the subject that wouldn’t sound sordid and accusatory and possibly send him running.
As for being in any way worried about my own safety, that was ludicrous. I didn’t believe Quinn’s theory about Bruce. Neither could I let it ruin my chances of deepening a relationship with this man.
Bruce was one of the very few men that I’d been attracted to since my divorce, and I wasn’t about to let Mike Quinn do my thinking for me.
Here Bruce was, the suspect himself, sitting across from me in the flesh, for me to judge. I looked into his face, his eyes. I didn’t see a murderer. I just saw Bruce…
“When and where?” I said, smiling, finally, with conviction.
“My place, say seven thirty?”
“Your place? But I thought you said it was a mess inside, still under reconstruction…”
“I figured something out. Something cozy. You’ll see—and with your ex-husband back, you know we’ll have a better chance at privacy over on Leroy.”
Why not? I asked myself. Couldn’t a woman get to know a man better by seeing the place where he lives? And, who knows, maybe I could actually uncover something that would take him off that suspect list. That thought alone boosted my convictions tenfold.
After all, I’d solved the murder of my assistant manager, Anabelle Hart, hadn’t I? Whether Quinn liked it or not, maybe it was time to put more than one detective on this case.
“Can’t wait,” I told Bruce, and meant it.
FOURTEEN
AN hour after sunset, autumn abruptly changed to winter in the Village, giving me my first New York snowfall in ten years. Icy flakes were falling, coating cobblestones, blanketing rooftops, and clinging to stately bare trees.
As eager as I was to see Bruce, I didn’t hurry as I made my way down Hudson. The next morning or afternoon, the temperature would undoubtedly rise again, and all of this would melt. Tonight, while I had the chance, I wanted to take my time and enjoy the radiant charm of streetlights glowing through gauzy lace.
They say time slows for people in this part of the city. The pace is more leisurely, the objectives more mannered than midtown’s lean, reaching towers of commercial sport. On a twilight evening like this, however, with a thick white blanket muting sounds of car traffic, ambulance sirens, and cell phones, time didn’t just slow, it stopped altogether. I was no longer in twenty-first century Manhattan. With the ghostly low clouds erasing even the tops of skyscrapers, I’d entered the pages of Henry James or Edith Wharton.
My boots crunched with every step as I walked, breathing in air that smelled fresh and crisp, enjoying the intimate stillness of the streets, the hush of all things around me.
The row houses of the eighteenth and nineteenth century looked more like dollhouses waiting under a Christmas tree, sweet as gingerbread; the snow, a final dusting of powdered sugar on delicate confections.
I turned onto St. Luke’s Place, one of the most desirable streets to live on in the Village. No more than three-quarters of a block in length, it carried an open and airy feeling, with dozens of tall ginkos lining a row of fifteen beautifully preserved Italianate townhouses. Facing a small park, these homes sat back from the wide sidewalk, their brownstone steps railed with ornate wrought iron, their arched doorways crowned with triangular moldings.
November was far too early for carolers, but given the preservation of historic detail on this stretch, I could almost hear a group of girls singing at the corner, see their buttoned up boots, long, layered skirts, thick velvet coats, and matching fur muffs.
As St.